The Man Working to Keep the Water On in Gaza

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The Atlantic

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🗓️ 2 November 2023

⏱️ 22 minutes

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Summary

Marwan Bardawil’s job is to provide water in Gaza. This is difficult in normal times, nearly impossible now, and yet critical. Without enough clean water, people get dehydrated, hygiene deteriorates, sewage backs up, and deadly diseases can spike. In a series of phone calls over a critical week, we track how this water engineer tries to keep his community, and his family from tipping further into disaster. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Nearly every day this past week, I've talked on the phone with a man named Marwan.
0:11.4	Hello.
0:12.4	Hello.
0:13.4	Oh, can you hear me?
0:14.8	Yes.
0:15.8	Oh.
0:16.8	Good evening, Marwan.
0:17.8	His full name is Marwan Bartowale.
0:20.8	He's 60 and he lives in Gaza, where the phone connection is understandably spotty right
0:25.7	now.
0:26.8	Marwan has a very specific job.
0:34.4	He's not a political or military figure.
0:37.2	He's not a foreign policy expert or an activist.
0:40.8	Marwan is an engineer, specifically a water engineer for the Palestinian Water Authority.
0:47.3	And his job is to get water to the two million people that live in Gaza, which is hard, even
0:52.8	in normal times.
0:57.4	Gaza sits between a dry desert and the salty Mediterranean, so they have to pump groundwater
1:03.4	up from below.
1:04.8	But over 97% of that water doesn't meet the water quality standards of the World Health
1:10.0	Organization.
1:11.0	It's often salty, brackish, or contaminated.
1:15.4	The plants needed to clean that water require fuel, which is in very short supply right
	...

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